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In an interview with DC Magazine, Henry said, “We give over $100,000 each year to needy journalism students. … I was talking to Tina Brown last night, and she said, ‘Wait, you give out scholarships?’ If Tina Brown doesn’t know about the scholarships, we’ve got to do a better job this year.”

Henry expanded on his comments in an email to POLITICO.

“To give you a little perspective on my thinking, as I was considering Conan O’Brien as the performer for this year’s dinner I went online and watched some C-SPAN video of the last time Conan performed at our dinner. It was 1995 during the Clinton administration, and I was struck that as I watched the tape one of my predecessors announced that evening that they were happy to present the White House Correspondents Association ‘scholarship’ — as in ONE scholarship!”

”I think we have worked tirelessly as a group to raise a lot more money and we will have some exciting announcements at this year’s dinner, a record amount of money will be raised. Secondly, we will be announcing that we have launched a new program to pair up our scholarship recipients with members of the WHCA for internships in the months ahead. We have been overwhelmed in recent days by the positive response of help from outstanding organizations like CBS News, NBC News, The Washington Post, and POLITICO among others.”

He concluded, “So I believe we are paying forward on a far stronger White House Correspondents Association’s scholarship program. The increased fundraising this year will mean we will be able to offer a lot more scholarships at next year’s dinner and beyond. The new internship program will mean in the days ahead we are also expanding our reach to get these scholars out of the classroom and into the workplace for real world experience with some of our terrific members.”